The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 13, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 16, 1997 Page: 1 of 42
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What’s Inside
Calendar.......2-A Opinion.........4-A
Classifieds..........7-8 Police Beat.......3-A
Sports...........1-B Wanda Orton.... 4-A
Obituaries.......SA Bible verse......4-A
tTIje ©aptoluti B>un
Sports, 1-B
Move over, Picasso
Goose Creek artists
shine in art contest
Dayton falls
Broncos’season
comes to close
Volume 76, No. 13
Telephone Number: 422-8302
Sunday, November 16,1997
Baytown, Texas 77520
$1.00 Per Copy
Iraqis bracing
for US. attack
■ President Clinton says showdown is
Saddam Hussein’s making, vows to con-
tinue last-minute efforts to reach diplo-
matic solution to crisis.
-See Page 10-A.
Police, Fire, EMS to
be honored Monday
The Baytown Chamber of Commerce is hosting
the fifth annual Public Safety Recognition Dinner at
6:30 p.m. Monday at the Baytown Community Cen-
ter, 2407 Market St. The annual banquet honors the
year’s outstanding police officer, firefighter and
emergency medical services crew member.
The public is invited to attend. Tickets for the event
are $ 10 and can be purchased at the Baytown Cham-
ber of Commerce, 4721 Garth Road, Suite C. For in-
formation, call (281) 422-8359.
Ganders
win, 27-21.1
Aldine's Milton Harris
hangs on for a score
despite close cover-
age from Lee’s Robert
Thomas. The Ganders
won, 27-21, Friday
night. See Sports,
Page 1-B for more.
Baytown
Christmas
parade set
for Dec. 4
It’s almost that time again, time
for Christmas caroling, colorfully
decorated trees, and the annual Bay-
town Christmas parade sponsored
by the city’s Park and Recreation
Department.
This year’s parade — complete
with candy, amazing floats and, of
course, Santa Claus — will start at
-6:30 p.m. Dec. 4 and travel about 1
1/2 miles east on Market Street to
Texas Avenue and Commerce
Street.
The criteria for judging entries of
the best Christmas themed-float will
Jx broken down into the following
categories: public floats, commer-
cial floats, cars, pickups, fire trucks
and motorcycles. These floats must
be street legal and no more than 13
feet tall.
; AIL motorized vehicles, unless
pulling a float or part of an ap-
proved motorized drill unit, must be
decorated in the Christmas theme.
Due to the length of the parade,
groups with young, children under
age 6 are asked to have the youths
riding in vehicles rather than walk-
ing. Marching groups are encour-
aged not to stop and perform along
the parade route.
As the Baytown Parks and Recre-
ation Department is sponsoring
Santa Claus, who, with his1’ helpers,
will pass out candy, parks officials
ask that no other organization pro-
vide their own Santa. Groups will
be allowed to hand out items to the
crowd, but throwing anything from
the floats is prohibited.
The parade lineup will begin at
5:30 p.m. on Market, Carnegie and
Martin Luther King streets between
Robert E. Lee High School and
Memorial Stadium.
Due to traffic congestion at the
staging area, officials ask that par-
ticipants meet their groups at an al-
ternate site and bring only parade
vehicles and floats to the staging
area. They may park in the parking
lots around Market Street and Lee
Drive.
■ Since Market Street between J.B.
LaFevre and Texas- Avenue will be
closed to traffic at 5 p.m., motorists
using Market Street between High-
way- 146 and Lee Drive and Texas
Avenue between Commerce Street
and Lee L)rK-e are reminded to find
alternate travel routes.
Organizations interested in join-
ing the parade should call the Parks
and Recreation Department at (281)
420-6597 by Nov. 28.
Munn In A Small Town
which the Gilmores expected to col-
the woman.
slitting her throat. She was left to die
on a Houston street, east of down-
town.
Richard Williams, who was not re-
lated to the victim, claimed the cou-
The capital murder trial of 43-
year-old Bruce Allen Gilmore, who
is accused of hiring Richard Head
tenced to die last month for the
March 24 slaying of 44-year-old
Baytown resident Jeanette
Williams.
In a videotaped confession, played
____________for the jury in that trial, Richard pie had promised to pay him with
Williams to kill a Baytown woman, Williams said he was paid $500 by money from an insurance policy
is scheduled to begin in a Houston Bruce and Michelle Gilmore to kill owned by Jeanette Williams from
courtroom on Monday.
Williams was convicted and sen- He stabbed the woman 13 times, lect $12,000.
Murder-for-hire scheme trial set for Monday
By EMILY ELSEN
The Baytown Sun
Saturday: Mostly cloudy,
lows near 40 Saturday night.
Sunday: Sunny and cod,
highs in the Igw to mid 50s
during the day.
Art by Ashley Newman
Tragic slaying
of Lisa Allison
has impacted
city of Liberty
By EMILY ELSEN
The Baytown Sun
LIBERTY— Since April 4,
1996, the morning 21-year-
old Lisa Allison was found
slain on the banks of the
Trinity River, this city of
less than 9,000 has been in a
collective state of shock.
On Thursday, some 18 months later, 39-
year-old ex-convict Robert Brice Morrow
was convicted of Allison^ brutal slaying.
Morrow will likely learn this4week if he will
be sentenced to life in prison—or death.
As the trial winds down, residents here
are hoping the town of Liberty can some-
how regain the sense of security lost in the
wake of the murder.
Many folks here haven’t had that feeling
in a long time—since the day Allison dis-
appeared. When Liberty residents learned
Allison had been stolen in the night from a
local car wash, business there dropped off
dramatically. Liberty residents locked their
doors. Parents held tightly to their children,
afraid they might be next.
Even after Liberty police arrested Mor-
row, Allison’s killer, his tales of frequent
drug use in Liberty stung their ears.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not
here.
Now, more than a year later, during the
trial of Allison’s killer, the town is still unit-
ed in grief. Since dramatic testimony in the
trial began Oct. 30, Liberty’s citizens have
lined the courtroom pews, anxious for a
first-hand look at the trial that captured the
town’s attention.
Each day, they crowded into the Liberty
County Courthouse, hungry for answers—
most of which would never come.
Some, including the defendant Morrow,
claimed the city of Liberty engaged in a
“witch-hunt” for Allison^ killer.
“(There is a) courtroom full of people
who are looking for a ,conviction,” said attor-
ney Steve Hebert of Bay town. Hebert
served as one of Morrow’s defense attor-
neys.
Liberty resi-
dent Carl
Apollo calls
the Lisa Alli-
son murder an
isolated inci-
dent. Apollo
feels that, al-
though the
area has been
rocked by the
murder and
the trial that
unfolded in the
Liberty County
Courthouse,
background,
Liberty is still a
great place to
live.
Morrow and his attorneys had requested a
change of venue because of the enormous
publicity surrounding the case—and be-
cause of the prominence in Liberty County
of the Allison family.
Allisonls grandparents founded the town’s
only funeral home in 1947 and her parents
are both well-known and well-liked in the
small town. Her; father, Mike Allison, was a
Liberty councilman and is'alcertified public
account and her mother, Susan Allison, is a
Liberty educator.
“I’ve been here all my life,” Patti Atkins, a
Liberty resident who observed much of the
trial. “Susan Allison teaches school. Mike
Allison is a local CPA and former city coun-
cilman. They’re a part of the workings and
education of the community. That’s why
you’re getting this (response).”
Hebert compared the emotions connected
to the Morrow trial to the O. J. Simpson or
Rodney King trials.
Even Liberty County District Attorney
Mike Little was affected by the case. During
his closing arguments, the experienced pros-
ecutor openly sobbed—and virtually an en-
tire courtroom joined him, including four fe-
malejurors.
Meanwhile, Morrow and his family mem-
bers say an injustice has been cpmmitted.
“It shouldn’t have been (tried) in Liberty
County,” said Marylou Stiles, Morrow’s
aunt “I know he’s innocent”
But area residents who crowded into the
courtroom last week to hear testimony are
convinced the jury did the right thing.
If they were surprised by anything, it was
the shocking testimony about rampant drug
use and violence in a sleepy Southeast Texas
town.
Ken Davis, 23, grew up in Liberty, and
was a classmate of Lisa Allisonk When he
heard about the slaying, he couldn’t believe
it: He had always felt so safe in Liberty.
“It’s a small town,” he said. “Folksknow
folks. I was always afraid of getting into
trouble when I was growing up because I
knew my parents would find out. It’s that
small of a town.”
He watched the trial of the man who
killed his friend and former classmate. He
went to work in the wee hours of the morn-
ing, just so he could be in the courtroom
when proceedings started each day.
“It was one thing to explain her death if it
was of natural causes or if she died of can-
cer,” Davis said. “It’s hard to explain evil.”
Atkins, a longtime Liberty resident; said
ever since Allison was killed, she can’t leave
her job at the local Liberty radio station
without calling her parents and her son. And
then, if she doesn’t come home exactly on
Photograph by
John Rowland
time, they panic, she said.
Defense attorney Hebert said the trial
probably introduced Liberty residents to a
subculture they likely had no idea existed in
their town.
“I don’t know how many people thought
you could drive out here and buy crack,” he
said. Hebert said he was shocked when he
realized most of the witnesses in the case
were habitual crack cocaine users and fre-
quent residents in the Liberty County Jail.
' “I thought we’d be pulling people in on
stretchers and talking to vegetables (because
of their heavy use of crack cocaine),” Hebert
said in closing arguments Thursday.
Brenda Burmeister, of Hardin, a commu-
nity near Liberty, spent her afternoons at the
trial. Her daughter is about the same age
now as Allison was when she was killed.
Burmeister listened, aghast, as Morrow
detailed a sordid life of drugs, booze and
crack addicts living on the edge, in and
around Liberty..
She hopes that the trial, in some way, pro-
vides a measure of closure to a tragedy that
has haunted this small city and its inhabi-
tants for more than a year.
“Somehow you’re connected with every-
body,” Burmeister said. “It’s such a small
town, it affects everybody. When she was
killed, it just hit me.”
WeBeY J
News tip? Cail (281) 422-8302
For home delivery, call (281) 422-8302
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Dobbs, Gary. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 76, No. 13, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 16, 1997, newspaper, November 16, 1997; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1176704/m1/1/?rotate=90: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.